Fusion

The Fusion Desk is just that. Fusion.

With elements of technology, education and furniture fused into one stylized design this unique approach allows teachers and students the ability to interact at a whole new level. Integrated wifi, bluetooth, google glass and other technology allows the teacher to communicate with all students simultaneously and individually.

During my research in elementary school classrooms, I found children needed privacy, collaborative space and furniture that would allow them to move and interact. Traditional school desks face many challenges such as ergonomics, flexibility and technology. The Fusion Desk maintains a comfortable and fun workspace for all children no matter if they need wheel-chair accessibility or have learning disabilities. Human factors were a key goal to me in this project; it’s important for the furniture to adjust to the human, not the human to the furniture. The Fusion Desk moves from 12 inches to 36 inches in height. This massive amount of adjustment allows children to sit, stand or kneel while increasing their concentration and focus.

The Fusion Desk is built without the traditional four legs; I got the idea from a hospital tray table.The tray table legs slide conveniently under the bed allowing the desktop to float over the bed allowing free space and ease of access. I carried this thought of free space and access over to the Fusion Desk by giving the user more access to place their feet and legs where it would be most comfortable and allow for the ability of free movement when needed.

As the parents of today will be looking for tomorrow’s solutions, the Fusion Desk will address physical ability through its flexibility. The Fusion Desk can be used sitting on the floor to a full standing position making it flexible to whatever the child needs may be. The stylized design improves communication and relationships between students and teachers causing true learning that will last a lifetime.

Coat Hook

The Vignelli Center for Design Studies is the permanent and comprehensive home for Massimo and Lella Vignelli’s expansive archive of professional career accomplishments. The Center is an educational resource with the primary goals of advocating design excellence at Rochester Institute of Technology and beyond through innovative programming, supported by extensive archival holdings of design exemplars.

Under Professor Josh Owen’s direction each graduate student was assigned a Vignelli-designed artifact and evidence of its developmental process from the Vignelli Archive on campus. Each student researched their designated context in which their item was generated, developing a clear metric for assessing the item’s success in its original context. Students were then responsible for using the same metric for developing a new object, adjusted in order to accommodate today’s landscape of conditions and habits.

Wave

My Uncle Stuart experienced being trapped in a body he couldn’t move and couldn’t communicate with when he became very ill and was rushed to the hospital. He woke up in the ICU with the nurse’s looking over him and asking him questions. He could see and he could think but he couldn’t communicate.

“I woke up; I didn’t know where I was or how long I’d been there… I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk... People were asking me questions. I could not ask any questions of my own. I wanted to know, what time is it? What day is it? …all I could do was blink.”

I have invented the concept of Healing Space to help accomplish an optimum healing environment and the first device to come out of it is Wave, a brain computer interface designed to use consumer EEG technology along with biofeedback. It will change the relationship between, doctors, patients and nurses by giving them a way to communicate and to talk about mental states.

Brain-Computer Interface ConnectionBrain texting uses existing EEG technology to create a virtual mouse. This mouse can be directed by conscious thoughts such as up, down, left or right. Wave reads the brainwaves and directly moves the mouse over a corresponding keyboard allowing a patient who is too weak or unable to move the ability to type out text messages to family, doctor’s and nurse’s.

Biofeedback MonitorThis function will serve the patient by adding mental health monitoring to the vital statistics of the physical body, such as, temperature and blood pressure. To measure a patient’s state of well-being doctors, nurses and patients can use the biofeedback data, created by Wave. Through the quantification of the data doctors can use it in diagnosing as well as a vehicle for teaching patients about the correlation between, mental health, physical health and emotional health. By monitoring pain, mood, engagement, boredom, excitement, frustration and meditation levels in real time the data will be invaluable for alerting medical staff to a problem before it reaches crisis mode.

Over the last couple of years I have had the unfortunate experience of helping a loved one through multiple hospital stays. These experiences have lead me to the question of, how do I create a space to optimize and inspire the body, mind, and emotional centers to heal and engage support and community? By combining empathy, cognitive and evidence based design practices I can create solutions for the most extreme patients and use those solutions for other patients and situations.

While communicating some ideas with my primary care physician I learned of a problem called ICU Psychosis. It is a disorder in which patients in an intensive care unit (ICU) or a similar setting experience a cluster of serious psychiatric symptoms. 1 in 3 patients who are in the ICU for more then 5 days experience some form of psychotic reaction.

Through interviews with ICU patients, nurses and doctors, a reoccurring theme clearly developed; fear, isolation and lack of communication. When a person is experiencing these emotions an optimal healing environment is not possible. What if we could create a healing space that could monitor a person’s mood and general well being? By monitoring mood and having alternative way’s to communicate we can create an environment that potentially could have faster healing times, lower medication usage and make a happier work environment. It’s time to bring humanity back to health care. Health care needs to concentrate on more then just the physical; it should include the mental and the emotional as well. We need all three to line up in order to heal.

Therm Apparel

ThermApparel is a Rochester Institute of Technology multidisciplinary initiative. The main goal is to provide a body cooling system for multiple sclerosis patients. The Phase Changing material keeps the body regulated to a set temperature and provide emergency relief in extreme situation when the body overheats.

All Terrain Walker The Walkabout

All Terrain Walker / The Walkabout is a Rochester Institute of Technology multidisciplinary initiative together with CP Rochester and MS Society. The main goal is to provide a walker that could help people with mobility issues to enjoy outdoor activities, provinding safety and comfort at the same time.

Curve

Curve is a temporary structural solution for emergency housing and pavilion needs. It has been designed to ship easily and conveniently in a flat pack format and to be constructed with a minimal amount of tools and fasteners allowing it to be constructed quickly and easily on site.

Because of the construction methods used it allows for a great deal of flexibility. This enables the user to apply different envelopes or exterior skins to the structure. For example, if the structure is placed in a warm tropical environment a cloth skin or louver system may be implied to allow for maximum airflow to contend with the warm climate. For a cold climate thick insulated materials could be used to keep cold out and heat in. These hallmarks all combined create Curve.

Exhibition Design

From 2001-2008 Kurtis had the pleasure of working in the exhibitions department as exhibition designer for George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York.

He was responsible for the design, content development and construct of museum collections, exhibits, and special projects. He researched ideas, materials, recommend solutions for design problems, utilized design techniques to produce desired visual effect and educational message. He ensured all designs had a definite link to the museum’s other collections, overall theme and were compatible with the museum’s own materials and conservation requirements.

Below is listed the exhibitions he designed. The pictures on this page are two shows he really enjoyed designing.2002 Robert ParkeHarrison: The Architect’s Brother2004 The Remarkable George Eastman: Vision and Obsession

Both of these exhibitions were designed and created from the ground up. For Robert ParkeHarrison: The Architect's Brother exhibition he designed and created a large dioramic based on Robert ParkeHarrisons photos using the props ParkeHarrison made for his images. For The Remarkable George Eastman: Vision and Obsession exhibition he designed and created small vignettes to illustrate the extraordinary life he lead.

Exhibition Design Leadership 2008 Steam and Steel: The Photographs of O.Winston Link2008 Tracks: The Railroad in Photographs2008 Not Forgotten: Portraits of Life and Death in Rochester2008 Larry Towell: The World From My Front Porch2008 Black in America: Eli Reed2007 The Tease: Burlesque Performers from the 1950s & ‘60s2007 Lucha Libre! Masked Mexican Wrestlers2007 Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius2006 Pete Turner: Empowered by Color2006 Robert Weingarten: 6:30 AM2005 Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth and Hawes2005 Photography on the Edge: Create and Be Recognized2005 Law & Order: Crime Scenes2004 The Remarkable George Eastman: Vision and Obsession2004 Machines of Memory: Cameras from the Technology Collection2003 The Best of Photo & Film: Right Before Your Eyes2003 Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks2003 9/112002 Picturing What Matters: An Offering of Photographs2002 The Armory Wall2002 The Master Prints of Edward S. Curtis2002 Indian Art/Facts: Contemporary Works of Art2002 Robert ParkeHarrison: The Architect’s Brother2001 Abelardo Morrell and the Camera Eye2001 In Praise of Nature: Ansel Adams and the American West2001 Requiem: By Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina

Art Work Photographic

Kurtis has worked as a professional photographer for over 20 years. Those years have given him a broad scope of experience and background in all forms of photography. He has worked in the worlds of photojournalism, the demanding world of commercial photography, the idealistic world of art photography, and the behind the scenes world of an international photography museum. He also has many years of experience in the education of photography, from teaching at the college level all the way to community development.

His photographic art work comes from his strong design background. He makes all the props and creates the images in camera.

Commercial Photography

Kurtis has worked as a professional photographer for over 20 years. Those years have given him a broad scope of experience and background in all forms of photography. He has worked in the worlds of photojournalism, the demanding world of commercial photography, the idealistic world of art photography, and the behind the scenes world of an international photography museum. He also has many years of experience in the education of photography, from teaching at the college level all the way to community development.

He runs an exclusive photographic studio, specializing in commercial, portrait, and wedding photography. A selected client list includes Johnson & Johnson, Columbia Records, Kodak, Xerox, and H&R Block. Kurtis produces high-quality, imaginative photographs that reinforces brand awareness in local and national advertising and he is responsible for working with advertising agencies, companies and individual clients.